


An Evening in Fitton

by TheMuchTooMerryMaiden



Category: Cabin Pressure, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Sadness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-26
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-11-06 01:20:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMuchTooMerryMaiden/pseuds/TheMuchTooMerryMaiden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is still working on proving that Moriarty was real, but sometimes it's so hard...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It starts in this way. John has been chasing down yet another lead in his quest to prove that Moriarty was real, that Sherlock wasn’t a fraud. He is exhausted and for once he goes into a pub in the god forsaken little village where he’s ended up. It’s so insignificant that he can’t even remember its name, just that it has a little airfield and there were rumours that Jim Moriarty had used a charter business based there to remove one of his victims from the country. He’d talked to the CEO of the business but it hadn’t really moved things on. And now he’s shattered and for once he’s allowing himself to feel the misery and the frustration and the tiredness.

Usually John doesn’t drink, he’s far too aware of his family’s history when it comes to alcohol to make it a habit, but tonight he doesn’t care, tonight he just wants to take the edge off and while he’s aware that this is probably the world’s worst reason to drink for a man who comes from a long line of alcoholics, he does it anyway.

Everything changes when he looks across the room and sees Sherlock.

 

Well, that’s his first thought. His second thought is that Sherlock must be in disguise. His third thought is that he’s lost his mind. There across the room from him is, well, it clearly isn’t Sherlock, even in disguise Sherlock couldn’t look that ... unassuming. But it could be, it really could be Sherlock apart from that. The hair is different, it’s a startling ginger in fact, but the cheekbones, the eye colour, the strange angularity of his features, they all could be Sherlock. When John looks more closely he can see more differences, this man is shorter and slighter even than Sherlock and he has a general air of being life’s punch-bag that Sherlock could never have. Still the resemblance is striking and the fact that he’s seen this man (he narrowly avoids thinking of him as a boy, although he must actually be about the same age as Sherlock would be) when he’s following up a Moriarty lead makes John decide to go over and talk to him.

 

To say that John is not used to picking up strange men in bars would be an understatement, he’s not even that used to picking up strange women in bars, so he spends a couple of minutes trying to work out what he’s going to say to the man. While he’s trying to work it out he keeps glancing at him, at least partly trying to be sure in his own mind that it really isn’t Sherlock. At least half of the time he’s looking at John when John looks at him and that sets a song off in the back of John’s mind. _Why does it always seem to be, me looking at you, you looking at me_ he hums under his breath as he makes his way across the pub to sit down next to the Sherlock-alike,

“I couldn’t help noticing that you were looking at me and I wondered why?” John begins, having decided to go for the direct approach to the situation.

“That’s a bit rich!” he replies and John can’t help but close his eyes briefly overwhelmed when it turns out that he even sounds a little like Sherlock, slightly different timbre, not quite so resonant, not so practiced, John realises, but a similar RP accent and similarly deep in pitch.

“Yes, I know,” John replies, “it’s just ...” he pauses, swallowing before continuing, “it’s just that you look an awful lot like a friend of mine that I haven’t seen for some time.” The man is gazing directly at John clearly taking in details. It’s a way that John hasn’t been looked at for just over eighteen months and each look feels like a punch in the guts.

“He must have been a close friend?” It’s asked like a question but it isn’t one, and Sherlock would never do that, he always made statements, he was always confident or at least John has realised in the last eighteen month that was the impression he tried to give. John looks down before he answers,

“Yeah,” he wants to say more but his throat is so tight that he can’t.

“Did he go away?”

“No,” John struggles again to speak, “he died.” John swallows again and again trying to regain some sort of composure, he hasn’t had this much trouble for months; it must be the drink he supposes, whilst knowing that’s not it. When he finally manages some composure he continues, “I watched him die.”

“I’m so sorry.” John believes him like he’s never believed anyone else when they’ve said that, even though it’s peculiar to hear that said honestly in (almost) Sherlock’s voice. “My name is Martin. Why don’t you tell me about him?”


	2. Chapter 2

John feels some of the weight of it all leaving him when he tells Martin about Sherlock, letting on just a little how much he misses his friend. It’s been months since he felt like he could talk to any of the others about Sherlock, he’d reached a point when it began to seem far too pathetic to continue but since it was all he wanted to talk about he’d more or less given up speaking. This evening it all came out in a rush.

“So, he just walks into the flat, enormous harpoon in hand, covered in blood looking like Captain sodding Ahab, complaining about the taxis in London!” 

Laughing, genuinely laughing, after so long feels like its own special release and Martin watches him with a gentle smile, it’s that look that finally convinces John that this is not Sherlock elaborately disguised.

“Did you love him?” Martin asks.

The question sobers John up in an instant, as he finally considers the question he’s been skirting around since he met Sherlock that afternoon at Barts,

“Yes, but ...” he pauses trying to find the words and takes a swig of his drink, “… it wasn’t really like that. I loved him, I still do love him, but I don’t, I didn’t…” John flounders unable to find the words he needs to express what he and Sherlock had.

“You love him but it isn’t about sex?”

John smiles in relief at the fact that someone finally understands,

“Yes, that’s it. I did love him, I do love him. I miss him so much and you know it would have been so much easier if we could just have screwed like rabbits but that isn’t, wasn’t it.” 

And then all of a sudden it feels to John like he’s sharing too much, certainly too much with a stranger that he’s just met in a pub, a stranger that isn’t Sherlock no matter how much he looks like him. Martin seems to realise what he’s thinking because his next comment is clearly intended to be much more neutral,

“So, what brings you to Fitton?” he asks.

John considers half a dozen possible answers to the question, from the politely discouraging to the out and out lie, to the truth and finally settles on a truth,

“Sherlock, really, even now he’s gone he still pulls my strings.”

Martin merely raises an eyebrow at this, but John can tell that the name has meaning to Martin, how could it not with every newspaper covering the story in slavering detail. John can feel himself tense up before he speaks again,

“I know you won’t believe this but it wasn’t like they said it was in the papers, he wasn’t a f…”

Martin interrupts,

“I never thought he was…”

It’s John’s turn to interrupt and there’s a little bit of anger in his voice, he doesn’t want to be patronised, he particularly doesn’t want to be patronised by some bloke in a pub in this dead end of a town,

“How could you possibly know or have an opinion?”

Martin looks a little bit cowed but John sees him take a deep breath before he speaks,

“I think everyone had an opinion on Sherlock Holmes and you aren’t the first person to remark on the resemblance. I think you’d be surprised how many people think he was for real. There was no reason for him to do what they said he did, any way you look at it, if he were a fake then why on earth would he put so much effort into it all?”

By the time Martin finishes his little speech John has tears in his eyes. It’s not the first time he’s come across someone who believes in Sherlock, it’s happened a few times but never when he’s needed it so much. He feels the need to cover what he’s feeling,

“What are you drinking?” he asks,

“Half of bitter, if you’re sure,” Martin replies, seeming to accept that John needs a little bit of distance but that they will carry on talking.

 

When John brings the drinks back to the table, a whiskey for himself and Martin’s half of bitter he has a grip or hopes he has a grip on his emotions.

“So do you get mistaken for Sherlock a lot?” he asks as he takes a sip of the whiskey.

“Not often,” Martin smiles and John notices the way in which he sips at his drink, like he’s used to making a drink last a long time, “But there was one guy, travelling with his brother who was way out of it, bandaged up and sedated, who nearly had a fit when he saw me.” 

John looks up slowly, fixing Martin with a clear steady gaze, that wipes the smile from Martin’s face and leaves him looking almost frightened,

“You work for MJN Air?” John asks and when Martin stutters an affirmative, John puts down his drink, “The passenger you were talking about, small, dark, Irish?” Again Martin nods and John pulls his chair closer up to the little table between them, trying so hard not to get his hopes up as he speaks again, “I want you to tell me everything you can about that trip and after that I want to talk to anyone else who was on the flight. Can you help me?”

Slowly Martin nods.


End file.
